1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable terminal such as a cellular phone and a Personal Digital Assistance (PDA). More particularly, the present invention relates to a sliding-type portable terminal, and improvements in the housing of such devices that permit a decrease in thickness.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, portable terminals may be classified into bar-type terminals, flip-type terminals and folder-type terminals according to their appearance.
The bar-type terminal has a single body housing, in which a data input/output means and a mouthpiece/earpiece part are mounted thereon. The flip-type terminal includes a body, a flip and a hinge module for pivotally coupling the flip to the body. The folder-type terminal includes a body, a folder and a hinge module for rotatably coupling the folder to the body. Among these portable terminals, the folder-type terminal is the most popular in the portable terminal market, as a data input/output means and a mouthpiece/earpiece part are arranged on a body and a folder in a distributed manner so that the terminal is easier to carry and use than the other types.
Meanwhile, desires of users for external shapes of terminals are becoming increasingly diversified in line with the increased use of the portable terminals in general. To meet the desires of users, portable terminals having new outward shapes have appeared, such as sliding-type and swing-type terminals. Among them, the sliding-type portable terminals have seen increases in its market share beyond that of the folder-type terminal due to the easy of use in an opening/closing operation.
Recently, as multimedia functions for portable terminals have increased, which include watching moving images and broadcast viewing-related functions, display devices of the portable terminals are increasing in size. Because of this demand for increased display size, there is a limit in minimizing the overall size of portable terminals, and attempts to minimize the size of portable terminals are now focusing on reducing a thickness of such portable terminals.
Despite the realization that most attempts to minimize the overall size of portable terminals are focusing on reducing the thickness of the terminals, since the sliding-type portable terminal has a structure in which a pair of housings and a sliding module for coupling the housings are stacked up, facing each other, there are many difficulties in attempting to reduce terminal thickness.